The Mekong River Development Project has been called the "greatest single example of regional cooperation in Asia today." To coordinate the work of developing the river and its lower basin area, the COMMITTEE FOR COORDINATION OF INVESTIGATIONS OF THE LOWER MEKONG BASIN was set up in 1957, consisting of one representative from each of the four riparian countries—Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

Over the ensuing years, working under the aegis of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE), the COMMITTEE has become an instrument for international as well as regional cooperation, engendering financial and technical involvement from 21 countries outside the basin.

From its very beginnings, it has been a cardinal principle of the COMMITTEE's work to seek the development of the water and water-related resources of the basin for the benefit of all the people of the basin with no distinction as to nationality, creed or politics. Devotion to this principle has enabled the MEKONG COMMITTEE, as it is familiarly known, and its cooperating entities to work together to promote understanding and unity, and to achieve substantial progress toward their goal despite devastating floods and numerous and often bitter internal political difficulties leading to civil strife and external interventions and invasions.

The Mekong is one of the 10 greatest rivers of the world, over 2,800 miles in length. It begins in the mountains of Tibet, sweeps down and forms borders between Burma and Laos, and later Thailand and Laos, and in its lower basin courses for 1,900 miles through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam into the South China Sea. In this lower basin, the Mekong drains an area larger than all of France and twice as large as Japan, inhabited by 20 million people.

The lower Mekong basin is in the center of the monsoon belt and is also affected by typhoons from the south. Rainfall is very heavy, though unevenly distributed. The river varies in width and volume from season to season.

During the rainy season, the river is literally bursting with water, and by the time it reaches Cambodia it is powerful enough to reverse the flow of one of its tributaries, the Tonle Sap, which then flows backward into the Great Lake and floods this natural catchment basin of the central alluvial plain. In the dry season, the Tonle Sap resumes its normal flow.

From earliest times the people living in the Mekong's watershed have depended on the river for their livelihood—for water for their crops and fish for their nets. It has always been a precarious livelihood, at the mercy of a river that might, in one season, burst its banks and inundate millions of acres of rich delta land, and in another recede, leaving crops parched and ruined.

Before Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam became independent, the French did a great deal to develop navigation on the Mekong and built a railway around Khone Falls for transshipment of goods upriver to the north. French engineers saw the tremendous potential of the river; they made valuable studies of its flow, took rainfall measurements, made general topographic surveys and did some aerial mapping. Yet, the Mekong continued to flow from its source to the sea with little human interruption: there were no bridges over its main channel, no dams to curb its flow. In the words of the first summary report on the Mekong River Development Project: "The River has thus been a giant asleep—a source of tremendous potential for power production, irrigation, navigation and flood control—but a source virtually untapped."

In 1951 the Bureau of Flood Control of ECAFE, together with the four governments of the Lower Mekong Basin, initiated a series of field investigations of the river. Since conditions were then unsettled in the region, extensive surveys were not possible and ECAFE's efforts were limited to an appraisal of the possibilities for large-scale, multi-purpose area development. The signing of the Geneva Accord of 1954 created a more favorable climate in the region and at its eleventh session in 1955 ECAFE called for further Mekong studies. In 1956 a team of seven international experts, organized by ECAFE, conducted a comprehensive investigation and field survey of the river's potential in the fields of irrigation, navigation, flood control and hydroelectric power. The team's report, submitted in February 1957, outlined key problems and possibilities, and singled out for particular attention and further detailed investigation several projects which might benefit two or more countries.

The report noted that basic data was almost totally unavailable, and urged that priority be given to the collection of essential information about the river's behavior. The team did learn, however, that some 5.7 million hectares of land were under cultivation in the four riparian countries of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, of which less than three per cent was irrigated. An initial irrigation scheme along the Mekong, the experts estimated, could bring more than nine million hectares under cultivation. As for the land currently under cultivation, 86 per cent of which was devoted to rice, irrigation and flood control would not only improve rice yields, but also make it possible to diversify crops.

The report proposed that dams and barrages should be built by stages over a period of 20 years, and it singled out as possible sites the Tonle Sap, Sambor and Khone areas in Cambodia, and the Khemarat and Pa Mong areas in Laos. The completion of projects at these five sites would make it possible to generate 13,700 million kilowatt hours of electric energy at relatively low cost. Construction of these projects also would meet essential irrigation requirements, moderate floods, and deepen the river for improved navigation.

The report stimulated realization by the four riparian countries of the importance to their economies of developing the Mekong. Representatives of these countries held a meeting in May 1957 to review development possibilities and recommended establishment of a COMMITTEE FOR COORDINATION OF INVESTIGATIONS OF THE LOWER MEKONG BASIN. Following approval of the recommendation by their respective governments, the COMMITTEE held its first meeting in Phnom Penh in October 1957.

The MEKONG COMMITTEE is a four-member board made up of one plenipotentiary member each from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. It is an autonomous, intergovernmental agency working under the aegis of ECAFE. The COMMITTEE is serviced by a secretariat, provided in part by the four member governments (41 per cent of the professional staff), and in part by the United Nations through ECAFE and the U.N. Development Program. COMMITTEE meetings are held several times a year, with the chairmanship rotating annually among the four members. Decisions require unanimous agreement of the Board. The COMMITTEE works closely with ECAFE and reports its progress to annual sessions of that body.

The COMMITTEE has divided its work into basic data collection, development of an overall basin plan, mainstream projects planning, tributary projects planning, navigation improvement, flood control planning, and ancillary projects such as development of experimental and demonstration farms, mineral surveys, power market projections and training programs.

Following the COMMITTEE's initial meeting in October 1957 a request was made to the United Nations for a group of international experts to undertake further comprehensive surveys of the Mekong and make recommendations of specific multi-purpose development projects. In response to its request a United Nations Survey Mission of the Lower Mekong Basin was organized under the United Nations Technical Assistance Administration.

Heading the Mission was Lt. Gen. Raymond A. Wheeler, a retired officer of the United States Army, serving as Engineering Consultant to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank). Other members of the survey mission included: Georges Duval, of the Société Grenobloise d'Etudes et d'Applications Hydrauliques of France; Yutaka Kubota, President of the Nippon Koei K.K. of Japan; John W. McCammon, former head of the Quebec Hydroelectric Commission of Canada; Kanwar Sain, Chairman of the Central Water and Power Commission of India; and Wheeler's aide, H. V. Darling of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

The Mission team arrived in Bangkok November 19, 1957, and from then until January 28, 1958, carried out a series of technical consultations and on-the-spot investigations, by land and air, of the river and its potential. The team report drafted in Bangkok was submitted to the United Nations and to the four riparian governments.

The Wheeler Report specifically recommended a five-year program of investigation costing US$9.2 million. It stressed that priority in the collection of basic data, should be given to promising mainstream sites for development, such as three mentioned in the 1957 ECAFE report—Pa Mong in Laos and Sambor and Tonle Sap in Cambodia—with second priority to promising sites on the major tributaries.

The Wheeler Report also proposed that "a high-level international technical advisory board of engineers of world-wide reputation be appointed by the COORDINATION COMMITTEE of the four countries. This Advisory Board was later set up consisting of engineers from France, India, the United Kingdom and the United States.

By the end of 1958 field studies had started and in 1959 engineers and equipment began to move on to key sites in the Mekong Basin. An important step in the progress of the Mekong program was the appointment in 1959 by the United Nations Secretary General—in consultation with the four riparian governments—of C. Hart Schaaf as Executive Agent of the COORDINATION COMMITTEE to provide overall day-to-day management of the ever increasing technical and administrative complexities of the program. The Executive Agent and his staff established permanent headquarters in Bangkok in quarters made available by the Government of Thailand. The offices were officially opened in November 1959 by United Nations Secretary (General Dag Hammarskjold who noted that, whereas the Mekong River has always been "a source of life," it is now also "a factor of unity." The Mekong project, he said, is an example of international cooperation and economic development which should be a model to other regions.

International support for the efforts of the COORDINATION COMMITTEE—both financial and technical—was evident from the beginning. As early as 1957 France gave the equivalent of US$100,000. Within a year the COMMITTEE's-resources exceeded US$4 million; by the beginning of 1961 the Wheeler Mission target of US$9.2 million had almost been reached. A United Nations Progress Report in March 1960 noted:

"Although the four riparian countries are ethnically, politically and perhaps even geographically diverse, they are united by the great river and by their common aspirations for economic and social progress. The development of the Mekong is now helping to unite them even more. Their continued cooperation and pooling of technical skills to harness the turbulent giant show how small nations can get together for the common good. That this is being done within the framework of the United Nations is another indication of the international climate of the times.

"The cooperative spirit of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam and the stimulus given to the project by the United Nations and the specialized agencies perhaps helped to rally financial and technological assistance from many quarters. Today there are nine countries outside the basin giving concrete assistance to the Mekong project: Australia, Canada, France, India, Iran, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

"The United Nations Technical Assistance Board (TAB) has helped by releasing special grants through the United Nations Bureau of Technical Assistance Operations (TAO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The new United Nations Special Fund has also taken action to aid the project."

As a result of this support, the report added, the work was going along well enough so that the construction stage of the Mekong program might conceivably be completed ahead of the 20 years estimated in 1957, "provided adequate finances are available."

Here, the report stressed the importance of continued international assistance for the Mekong project, "since the four states sharing the river's lower basin are small, underdeveloped countries whose resources will remain inadequate in any foreseeable future for an undertaking of this magnitude. The financial and technical aid which is now serving to carry out the main features of the Wheeler program will be needed in much greater volume when the actual construction stage is reached."

The Mekong Project, as developed by the MEKONG COMMITTEE, was a massive program, providing for the generation of hydroelectric power, irrigation, flood control, drainage, navigation improvement, watershed management, water supply, and industrial and social development activities.

Ten projects were lined up for the mainstream and 16 for the river's tributaries, with priority to be given to three on the mainstream:

At Pa Mong, a short distance upstream from Vientiane where the river forms the international boundary between Laos and Thailand, the project envisaged one of the largest reservoirs in the world, which would make possible irrigation of about one million hectares of land in Laos and Thailand, and continuous generation of about 1.5 million kilowatts of electricity.

At Sambor, in Cambodia, the project would provide irrigation for 100,000 hectares of land and make possible continuous generation of 400,000 kilowatts of electricity even without Pa Mong; in conjunction with the Pa Mong project, electricity generation would triple.

At Tonle Sap the project would utilize the Great Lake of Cambodia for storage and regulation. It would improve the fisheries of the lake, now in danger of extinction, and make possible water management and reclamation of vast areas of the Mekong delta in Cambodia and Vietnam. The seven other projects planned for the mainstream were at Pak Beng, Luang Prabang, Pak Lay, Thakhek, Khemarat, Khone and Stung Treng.

The COMMITTEE considered the Tonle Sap dam to be the primary project:

"The Tonle Sap is the great safety valve of the Mekong. For when the river swells, because of the spring thaw in the mountains and of the monsoons, it draws all the excess water to the Great Lake, which serves as a huge reservoir and a flood regulator. This increases the lake in size to 770 square miles—and in depth to 45 feet.

"When the dry season arrives, the Tonle Sap conveniently changes its course and carries the water from the Great Lake back to the Mekong, so that small oceangoing vessels can steam up the river. Then the lake shrinks in area to 100 square miles and to a depth of only five feet.

"Trouble begins when too much water rushes along the Tonle Sap into the Great Lake, and the lake bursts its banks. Then too, when too little water is left in the lake, it becomes dry.

"A dam, therefore, is a must at Tonle Sap. It will raise the level of the lake during the dry season, inevitably increasing its fishing resources. It will triple the amount of land for cultivation through irrigation and reclamation."

The 16 projects identified for the river's tributaries included four in Cambodia—Prek Thnot, Stung Pursat, Stung Battambang, and Stung Sen; six in Laos—Nam Ngum, Nam Lik, Nam Theun, Se Bang Fai, Se Bang Hieng, and Se Done; four in Thailand—Nam Pung, Lam Dom Noi, Chaya Poum, and Nam Pong; and two in Vietnam—Upper Se San and Upper Sre Pok.

To improve navigation, another of its principal objectives, the COMMITTEE instituted a three-year hydrographic survey in 1961, under the sponsorship of the U.N. Special Fund. By 1964, on the basis of information provided by the survey, permanent improvements to navigation had been introduced on the most important commercial stretches of the river's course in the lower basin. Previously the maximum possible draft of the 40 to 50 vessels per month sailing from the China Sea to Phnom Penh—capital and principal port of Cambodia—was four meters at low water; navigation at night was nearly impossible. New charts prepared by the hydrographic survey showed channels which would allow ships with five meters draft to use the river at low water—permitting an additional 1,000 tons of cargo to be carried on every sailing. Illuminated markers, shore beacons and light buoys have made night sailing possible. As a further help to navigators a radio station is planned near the Vietnam-Cambodia border to give information to seagoing ships.

These new charts of the river represent the first scientific basis for determining the measurements, lines and power required for boats and barges on various stretches of the river, and will have an important influence on the design of river craft. The COMMITTEE is hoping to establish a panel of consultants to advise it on the improvement of river craft. The need for improvement of river ports and ship repair yards has also been brought to the fore by the hydrographic survey. A new shipyard and repair shop is being planned for Saigon to maintain the survey vessels and the aids to navigation in the delta reaches of the river. Detailed mapping has already helped improve the berthing arrangements for ships at Phnom Penh.

In many parts of the river, rocks, rapids and shallow, sandy stretches are a danger to navigation. While the proposed dams eventually will flood out many of the rapids and generally increase the depth of the river over considerable stretches, it is planned to improve navigation in the meantime by eliminating as many as possible of these hazards. The hydrographic survey has pinpointed the dangerous sections, and its charts will enable civil engineers to decide what needs to be done to improve the channel in these areas.

Another objective of the survey is to provide "on-the-job" training for nationals on the hydrographic staffs of the four Mekong countries. Under the direction of UN experts, they have made soundings, established markers and produced accurate maps covering some 1,800 kilometers of the river's course. Training in the use of navigational aids is also being made available to river pilots. The hydrographic survey has helped the Cambodian School for Pilots with navigational instruction, and its experts have briefed Vietnamese pilots who guide ships on the lower reaches of the river. The MEKONG COMMITTEE has sponsored discussions among senior officials of the four countries on navigation practices in the lower reaches and it hopes to establish a regional training center for technical and engine room staffs.

As the sponsor of the hydrographic survey, the UN Special Fund contributed US$381,800 to provide international staff and equipment. Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam spent US$392,240 in providing and paying staff, supplying boats and launches and undertaking other services. Six other countries gave support to the survey and closely related work. Canada supplied aerial maps and photographs, and Iran gave fuel for boats and other motorized transport. New Zealand contributed a 50-foot survey launch and smaller water jet craft. The Netherlands supplied a cutter-suction dredge for the improvement of inland waterways in Vietnam and sent a pilot training officer to develop pilot training in Cambodia. The United Kingdom provided a launch, sounding equipment, office equipment, a radio station, beacons and markers, and the United States contributed sounding equipment and cooperated in the survey of South Vietnam waters.

The ECAFE report on the results of the hydrographic survey emphasizes that the importance of this waterway will not be affected by the gradual development of road, rail and air routes. "Navigation on the Mekong," the report states, "will in fact assume a greater significance as the entire development plan unfolds. The discovery of large reserves of iron ore close to the river in Thailand's northeastern province of Loey, is one indication of profitable waterborne cargoes of the future. The suspected presence of large mineral deposits in other parts of the Mekong basin reinforces the case for immediate navigational improvements."

Another objective of the Mekong program is the industrial and social development of the area. In 1961, with financial support provided by the Ford Foundation, the MEKONG COMMITTEE commissioned a study of these aspects. This study was headed by four experts: Gilbert H. White, Chairman, Egbert de Vries, Harold B. Dunkerley and John V. Krutilla. The White Mission Report, entitled "Economic and Social Aspects of Lower Mekong Development," presented 14 recommendations for implementation and further study in the fields of power market potential; flood forecast and damage reduction; comprehensive rural demonstration projects; synthesis of resource data and resource use; land development; and agricultural extension services. In its review of the recommendations the COMMITTEE indicated that it hoped to implement many of them under its own auspices while others, or portions of them, "will necessarily and most efficiently rest for implementation under the direct auspices of government agencies in the four countries with which the COMMITTEE collaborates but for whose programs of work the COMMITTEE is not directly responsible."

In its 1963 Annual Report to ECAFE, the MEKONG COMMITTEE was able to report good progress in reference to two categories of power market-analysis. A field study of flood forecasting and damage reduction had been completed, and pilot demonstration farms were being planned on four tributaries and in one case was already being constructed. A basic inventory of land use and potential use was being carried out on seven tributaries and was in prospect for three mainstream projects, particularly the Pa Mong project where some one million hectares would soon be surveyed. With reference to a synthesis of available data on resources, resource uses, and social characteristics concerning land development, the report noted that although much of the COMMITTEE’s work is related to this activity, "the COMMITTEE feels that it has only made a beginning upon work of this area." The report stated: "Volume-wise, in terms of any sort of rough dollar equivalent which could be assigned to. . .activities to date in the field of economic and social analysis and planning, the COMMITTEE’s work is not yet at anything like the level recommended by the White Mission. As and when the COMMITTEE obtains further assistance for work in this field, it looks forward to amplifying and extending its work in economic and social fields."

In an article prepared for Scientific American on the 1961-62 Mekong Study Mission, Chairman White stated: "Given the political history of the region during the period, the continuation of the work seems incredible." He noted that the study projects a near-doubling of the population of the four riparian countries by the last decade of this century. To secure the food requirements for that number and to improve the per capita income requires accelerated rates of rice production and industrial output and a consequent heavy increase in demand for electric power.

White added that large-scale construction of dams and canals and widening and deepening of channels will not in themselves provide solutions to the long-range needs of a rapidly growing population. Eradication of adult illiteracy, expansion of elementary and secondary schools, training of agricultural advisers to work in the villages and provincial centers, expansion of training in engineering and other technical skills ought, he said, to have high priority in the national development plan.

"Since both water management and social change must go forward together," he wrote, "our Ford Foundation-sponsored mission recommended that the four countries should proceed forthwith on the specifications for and construction of a few tributary projects. We did so in the belief that the values of early experience and action—in the management of agricultural development as well as dam-building—would outweigh the possible cost of undertaking a less than optimum project."

As to the total Mekong program, White concluded: "If political conditions are favorable and if reason and vision can find their way into the construction and administration of the lower Mekong program to the same degree that they have emerged in the study stage, this program may become the first genuinely international and peaceful venture in river-basin development. It may thereby help to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of the development of international rivers elsewhere in the world."

The MEKONG COMMITTEE concurred with the White Mission that tributary projects would not only provide sorely needed irrigation to areas not serviced by any of the planned mainstream projects, but would also serve as training grounds for local personnel before larger and more sophisticated mainstream construction began. Accordingly the first hydroelectric program completed was the Nam Pung tributary project, opened by the King of Thailand November 14, 1965.

In his message of congratulations on the opening of the first component in the Mekong Development Project, United Nations Secretary General U Thant called it "a shining and happy symbol of the vast benefits, in hydroelectric power, irrigation, flood control, navigation, and related far-flung economic and social fields, which can be achieved for all the people in the basin in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam without distinction as to nationality or politics through the coordinate efforts of the MEKONG DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE, of the cooperating governments from outside the basin, of the United Nations and its family of agencies, and of the many other organizations and groups now working together within the overall project."

Completion of the first project was followed shortly by the opening on March 14, 1966 of the much larger Nam Pong project located on a tributary in the poorest region of Thailand, 365 kilometers northeast of Bangkok and 165 kilometers southeast of Vientiane. Some nine million people live within this area. As is typical of the entire lower Mekong basin, before the dam was built the annual monsoon gave enough water for only one crop, and in northeast Thailand exceedingly poor soil meant that even this one crop was minimal. For more than half the year, the northeast was parched and barren. With the opening of the Nam Pong dam 47,000 hectares of land were irrigated and electric power supplied to- most parts of the region. When the Pa Mong dam on the main channel is completed water from the Mekong will be diverted into the Nam Pong reservoir to irrigate more land.

Among other tributary projects currently under construction is the Nam Ngum project in Laos which is to be connected with the Nam Pong project in Thailand pursuant to a covenant signed by the four MEKONG COMMITTEE members and the United Nations. Work is proceeding hereby power generated at Nam Pong in Thailand will be in use across he Mekong in Vientiane, Laos, by mid-1967.

In addition to mainstream and tributary projects, the MEKONG COMMITTEE has developed proposals for ancillary projects such as prevention of forest and grassland fires through elimination of slash and burn cultivation; development of industries; construction and operation of irrigation experimental and demonstration farms; conducting national, basin-wide, regional and global power-market surveys, and soils and land use surveys.

In its Annual Report to ECAFE for 1965, presented in February 966, the MEKONG COMMITTEE listed the following highlights which show both the progress and the international complexion of the Mekong development Program:

"Completion by Australia of design and specification for construction of the dam and specification for the design and construction of the power station of the proposed Prek Thnot tributary project in Cambodia; completion by Israel of feasibility design and report on Prek Thnot irrigation; commencement of field work by Israeli team in the development of Prek Thnot experimental and demonstration farm.

"Continued progress of Japanese team in feasibility investigations of proposed Sambor mainstream project.

"Chemical analysis with United Nations Special Fund financing of some 200 samples of bauxite from Cambodia, with encouraging results. . .

"Continuation under the United Nations Special Fund and United Kingdom program, with their Thai counterpart personnel and the U.S. Geological Survey as subcontractor, of minerals exploration ration work in Northeast Thailand. . .which by the end of the period under review revealed iron ore reserves of probably some 15-17 million tons for mainly open-cut mining plus probably some 7-8 million tons for shallow underground mining which would be adequate for the establishment of an iron and steel industry.

"Assessment through drilling, sampling and chemical analysis under the United Nations Special Fund program in Thailand, of a reserve of at least 500 million tons of massive rock salt in one single, shallow deposit.

"Completion by the United States team of the First Phase feasibility investigations of the proposed Pa Mong mainstream project; and signature. . .of a Project Agreement for the expansion and continuation of the investigations in the Second Phase. . . .

"Completion in Vietnam of the construction design and bidding specifications for the My Thuan bridge. . .

"Completion by Scandinavian team of investigations of possibilities in the establishment of a large-scale pulp and paper industry.

"Considerable progress in the development of the COMMITTEE’s network of experimental and demonstration farms. . . .

"Increase of approximately $37 million equivalent in resources pledged to the MEKONG COMMITTEE and projects sponsored by the COMMITTEE, from a total of $67.8 million equivalent at the commencement of the period under review to $104.8 million as of the last day of the year, with the total divisible into 31 per cent being made available by the four riparian countries and 69 per cent being made available from outside the basin. . . ."

The MEKONG COMMITTEE transmitted to ECAFE a provisional 10-year of requirements list for comprehensive development of the lower Mekong basin.

The first two-year phase (1C965-67) involves mainly tributary projects, a priority, Executive Agent Schaaf points out, which "conforms with the general strategy of development adopted by the MEKONG COMMITTEE to start with separable tributary projects, whose operation would not have a significant impact on water flows in other parts of the basin."

Subsequent development is projected on a more massive scale, including the development of the first three mainstream projects—Pa Mong, Sambor and Tonle Sap. "Based on the present pace of investigations of the COMMITTEE," Schaaf states, "the COMMITTEE hopes that by about October 1967: (a) the feasibility investigations of the Sambor Mainstream Project in Cambodia will have been completed; (b) the Second Phase Feasibility Investigations of the proposed Pa Mong Mainstream project will have been completed (bringing both Pa Mong and Sambor to the point where serious financial negotiations can begin); and (c) an amplified basin plan showing the inter-relationship between mainstream and major tributary projects will also have been completed."

The Mekong Basin Development Program has been called "a remarkable display of international cooperation, considering the politically sensitive atmosphere prevailing in the area." Today, 54 teams from 25 nations (including, besides those already mentioned, the Republic of China, Pakistan, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, West Germany and the Philippines) are participating in a variety of COMMITTEE-sponsored projects along the Mekong. They represent government units, foundations and private business and industry. Under the direction of 12 United Nations agencies, these groups are aiding in research, planning and actual construction of the many dams and canals needed to control the river. In addition, they are carrying on extensive studies of the entire Mekong area as an economic unit, realizing that economic progress cannot be achieved simply by damming the river and building a series of power plants.

As R.T. Sipinen, planning engineer for the Pa Mong dam project (on loan from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation) puts it: "There is not much point in spending millions to span a huge river with costly engineering works, if the power they will generate and the water they will store cannot be used economically and effectively. Technically there is no insurmountable problem in building the dams in question. The difficulties which arise can be solved in a logical manner. Handling the human side of the project will by no means be as predictable. What industries will use all the new power? How will the social fabric of the peoples' lives be changed? Who will teach farmers the proper use of irrigation? And what new crops should they plant? The answers to these questions aren't solved by computers or engineering formulas. They must, instead, be sought by careful training and planning over a long period of time."

It is the task of the MEKONG COMMITTEE to carry on the careful planning and coordination of the wide variety of activities necessary to insure that the entire Mekong Basin's economic development progresses as one unit so that none of the facilities created by mastering the river will be wasted.

With reference to carrying out this task the first summary report on "The Mekong River Development Project," issued in 1966, states:

"As one makes a study of the four countries involved in the Mekong River Development Project, problems which beset them are projected beyond their individual personalities as the riparian governments. One sees the insistence of Cambodia to terminate American economic and military aid; the increasing difficulties of troika government in Laos; the economic vulnerability and resultant political vulnerability of Northeast Thailand; the hydra-headed activities of the Viet Cong in the Republic of Vietnam, and the ruptured relations between Cambodia and Thailand, and between Cambodia and the Republic of Vietnam. Yet, these very countries-Cambodia Laos, Thailand and the Republic of Vietnam—have set aside their differences and emerged into a unified body to establish the COMMITTEE FOR THE COORDINATION OF INVESTIGATIONS OF THE LOWER MEKONG BASIN, under the sponsorship of the United Nations.

"For instance, Cambodia has insisted on the termination of aid to their country from the United States. A question was posed, therefore, as to whether Cambodia, in view of its attitude towards aid from the United States, would nevertheless continue to collaborate rate with the Mekong Project, which receives U.S. aid. At COMMITTEE meetings late in November 1963, and March 1964, Cambodia's representative expressed the country's desire to continue to collaborate, only within the orbit of the Mekong project, with all countries cooperating with the MEKONG COMMITTEE. And at the same COMMITTEE meeting in 1964 Cambodia' as one of the four members of the Committee, signed specific agreements with the United States looking toward continued U.S. aid, for example, in the installation of hydrologic equipment on six Mekong tributaries, two of' which are located solely within Cambodia.

"This, and many other instances, illustrate that the Mekong project is, to a large extent, workable—as far as relations of the four riparian governments within themselves and towards other countries are concerned.

"Many trends in Southeast Asia are troublesome and negative. Above all these, the Mekong Project rises high with positive hope of economic and social improvement for the countries in the lower Mekong Basin, without distinction as to politics or nationality."

August 1966 Manila

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